Sony Field Emission Display Technology

Sony, Sony, Sony… Why can’t you ever just play along with all the other kids? When they were starting to bring out MP3 players you were still insisting MiniDISC was the way to go. When everyone was using compact flash memory cards you had to go cook up your Memory Stick format. And now that SED technology is looking to be the wave of the future for flat-screen displays you come out with FED instead.

Like SED the concept of FED is to mash up all the best parts of CRTs with all the best parts of LCDs or Plasmas. Essentially the displays would use a dedicated electron emitter for every single pixel as opposed to CRTs which use a single gun to scan back and forth. And how those electron emitters function is apparently the biggest difference between the SED and FED technologies.

The benefits of FED include extremely fast refresh and response times and something like 20,000:1 contrast ratios. It also means that smaller 1080P displays are easier to make and Sony hopes to release a 26 inch HDTV by 2009 using the FED technology. Personally I’d be more than happy to choose a Sony FED TV as long as each one shipped with that snazzy silver-mylar jacket the guy in the photo is wearing.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.